My Story is about Belonging

My presentation went well, but not as well as I would have liked. I forgot to say certain things, and I totally blanked on my last critical sentence.

“As Maya Angelou said…” I fumbled around searching for it in my head.

“Oh goodness, she said…oh goodness, she said…” My slides had stopped running, and my 20 seconds were over.

I took a deep breath, “Anyway, I lost the quote…it’s over.”

Everyone laughed, warmly with kindness in their hearts. I knew I had failed, despite the fact that I had practiced and tried so hard to prepare. Anyway, I was understood, and it was okay.

At that point, I courageously and humbly went back to the podium to review my notes and read that quote with some oomph, humility, and grace…outside of the PechaKucha boundaries.

“I belong everywhere…I belong nowhere…I belong to myself. Thank you very much!”

I think it was the first time I’ve presented without index cards or notes. PechaKucha is tough, because you only have 20 slides, and 20 seconds per slide, and the slides advance automatically. So you really have to be on the ball!

Needless to say, I didn’t have time to compose another article this week, but I thought a lot about belonging, and just how many of us don’t feel it right now. But also how extremely important it is for us as human beings, and the extent to which people will go to feel it.

My 2024 PechaKucha presentation, in Benton Harbor, Michigan…

My story is about belonging. When I was a little girl, I didn’t feel like I belonged in this world. I was painfully shy and had a hard time expressing myself. I had a lot to say but I didn’t know how to say it, so I started writing.

 

 

 

I am a writer, and I am super curious about the world. After college, I decided to join the Peace Corps. I went to live and work in Cameroon, West Africa. Here, I started figuring myself out and where I belong.

 

 

For the first 3 months, I lived with a Cameroonian family while I went to training every day to learn French and Health Education. This family provided me a private room, breakfast and dinner, and did my laundry (except undies).

 

 

There was no running water or electricity. We collected rain water for all our needs. I learned how to take a bath in a bucket, wash my clothing by hand, cook and eat on the floor, use my right hand as silverware, and my left hand as toilet paper.

 

 

Life was hard, and the bugs were crazy big! I remember waking up in the middle of the night to find a giant spider on the wall. I tried to kill it with my shoe but accidently snagged its sac and watched thousands of baby spiders scurry in all directions. I fell to my knees, sobbing.

 

I felt like quitting, especially in the beginning, but I didn’t. I wasn’t a quitter and this was supposed to be the toughest job I’d ever love. After training, I went to work in a small village. My first friends were children, but I soon got to know everybody.

 

 

Most homes were mud brick with dirt floors. I had cement, but no running water or electricity. At night, I used a lantern and slept under a mosquito net. I peed in a cup to avoid the hundreds of giant cockroaches that covered my latrine.

 

 

There was no doctor in the health center. I helped a nurse treat sickness and disease, vaccinate children, and deliver babies in primitive facilities. But many locals didn’t come see us because they believed that bad spirits and witchcraft made them sick.

 

 

There was a lot of sickness and disease. My friend had large worms moving under her skin. A young girl I knew died for a reason I don’t know. People generally had many children because they knew they’d lose more than half.

 

 

I formed a United Women’s Group to teach small business skills like how to make soap and banana bread to sell in the market. It took three levels of language interpretation to communicate with these women. There are over 250 languages.

 

 

Women were strong. They worked the farms, cooked the meals, carried babies on their backs, etc. Certain rituals were unfriendly to women though. Like when my friend’s husband died, she had to sleep with his dead body for 7 days, without bathing.

 

My village had many ceremonies. And sometimes they went out together and fished. They’d put some plant in the water that made the fish drunk and come to the surface. Then they’d catch the fish in baskets and cook them up on an open fire.

 

 

I taught karate, something I did almost everywhere I went, and performed in front of the village during one of the official ceremonies. The children loved it. I was also recognized for my achievements by the South Bend Tribune when I returned home.

 

Children were over at my house all the time. We didn’t speak the same language but we were close. They helped me do things like gardening, or getting water from the well when it hadn’t rained. There was no trash pickup but they used almost all of my trash to make toys.

 

 

Unlike many volunteers, I stayed in my village a lot and tried to blend into the culture. I bought material from the market and took it to a tailor to have my clothing made. I wore African clothing regularly. I wanted to be African, to belong.

 

 

I had no trouble immersing into the culture. Several guys asked me to marry them, and one of them “charmed” me through a witch doctor. That is, he put a curse on me so that I’d fall in love with him. My friends warned me before it was too late.

 

 

When I left Cameroon, I went to Ecuador for another two and half years where I did youth development work and health education. I did get married there, to an Ecuadorian man and became a big part of his family. We were married for 20 years and had two sons.

 

After returning to the USA with an Ecuadorian husband, I went on to get a Master’s Degree, and ended up becoming the Director of Study Abroad at a large university. I’ve since been to more than 30 countries. Lately, I’ve been getting to know Asia.

 

My two sons are now in college on full scholarships. Like me, they appreciate traveling and experiencing other cultures. My work took us to Italy where we lived for several years, and they’ve been to Ecuador many times to visit family.

 

 

Living abroad helped me see outside of my cultural lenses. It gave me stories for my novel. And it helped me know that no matter where I go, I’m not alone. As Maya Angelou once said, I belong everywhere and nowhere…I belong to myself.